The dynamics of rankings work – a field study of the crafting and recrafting of a soft public ranking

We study how a rankings network, comprised of people and things, crafted and recrafted a counter-competitive soft ranking: the Swedish Municipality Quality Public Ranking, between 2007 and 2020. Using actor-network theory as a sensitising framework, we focus on two key interrelated dimensions of rankings work: (1) actor enrolment and (2) calculative design. We highlight that these two dimensions could conflict, documenting three key inflexion points, when actor efforts to manage tensions transformed the operation of the ranking. We also show that a counter-competitive ranking can be built and used for decades; rankings need not be engines of competition. Rankings, as composite indices, have been further criticised as oversimplified, non-rigorous tools. We show that multiplicity may not be more efficacious. Here, ensuring multiplicity in enrolment (rapid increase in municipalities enrolled) and calculative design (no composite index, multiple rankings, secondary indicators, peer selection for comparison) created a ranking that was too complex and too ‘soft’. Over time, while quality controllers were engaged, other key stakeholder groups (politicians and functional managers) lost interest. We also note how the development of a soft ranking may enable the professionalisation of a new learning-oriented occupational group of quality controllers.